Searching for Samuel Baskett

By Rosemary Allen

Samuel Baskett, growing up in a Dorset rectory, wants to save lives, not souls. Mary Cockram, looking after her animals on the family farm, longs to travel the world.

Spanning nearly 60 years of the eighteenth century, Searching for Samuel Baskett is a sweeping family saga, chronicling the lives of the Baskett and Cockram families, their friends, and servants. It tells of their loves and losses, their joys, and tragedies.

When Samuel sets up as surgeon, apothecary and ‘man-midwife’ in the Dorset town of Wareham, he goes against all the accepted practices of the time. He attends births, encourages mothers to breast-feed their babies and tries to convince his patients to give up their old traditional remedies for fits and fevers.

The novel covers many issues still relevant today – vaccination, slavery, and the role of women in society. Samuel meets a local farmer, Benjamin Jesty, who used matter from cowpox to inoculate his family, years before Jenner. And Mary sets up a school for girls, providing lessons in mathematics and ‘natural philosophy’.

Samuel Baskett’s signature inside an old 1766 dictionary inspired Rosemary Allen to investigate further. The family trees she built up from Dorset parish records form the skeletal structure of the novel; she just had to put flesh on the bones in the form of a fictional narrative.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Sep 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781035801695

Rosemary Allen

Rosemary Allen has been writing on and off all her life. When her children left home, she took an English and media degree as a full-time mature student and then taught at the local College of Further Education. She has written around a dozen short stories, including The Onion Man, which was read on Radio 4. After she retired, she wrote her first novel, Listening to Brahms, about the ability of music to evoke memories of the past. She lives in Dorset, near her large, extended family.

Book preview

About the Author

Rosemary Allen has been writing on and off all her life. When her children left home, she took an English and media degree as a full-time mature student and then taught at the local College of Further Education. She has written around a dozen short stories, including The Onion Man, which was read on Radio 4. After she retired, she wrote her first novel, Listening to Brahms, about the ability of music to evoke memories of the past. She lives in Dorset, near her large, extended family.

Dedication

The Baskett and Cockram families and all their descendants.

Copyright Information ©

Rosemary Allen 2023

The right of Rosemary Allen to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035801688 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035801695 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

Particular thanks to David and Sally Beaton for acting as my unofficial editors while I was writing the novel, and to my family and friends for all their encouragement. I should also like to thank Jan Spink and Derek Watson, who are direct descendants of Samuel Baskett, for allowing me to fictionalise the story of their family.

Preface

Several years ago, I bought a 1766 edition of Bailey’s dictionary. Inside was inscribed Samuel Baskett, of Wareham Dorset, Surgeon, Apothecary and Man-Midwife. On another page, the names Mary Cockram, Lewis Cockram and Mary Baskett were written. And on the title page it said, Charlotte Baskett’s book. Intrigued, I decided to investigate. By trawling through the Dorset parish records, I pieced together family trees for the Baskett and Cockram families in Wareham and Swanage. So, all the main characters in the novel, and most of the minor ones, including the servants, are based on real people. They form the skeletal structure of the novel, and I have put flesh on the bones in the form of a fictional narrative. Several of them left wills, giving helpful information I was able to use in the story.

Prologue

At first, you think there is nothing in the attic, apart from dust and cobwebs. Then you see the chest, pushed into the far corner. It is made of dark brown leather, decorated with rows of brass studs, and secured by a large iron clasp. When you manage to open it, you see that it is crammed full of books, papers and many other objects. You decide to take them out of the chest one by one and realise you are able to piece together the story of a family.

On top is a small walnut cabinet. You take it out and open the drawers…

Part 1

Samuel Baskett

Chapter 1

The Butterfly Collection

Wednesday, 22 June 1748 – St Michael’s Church, Owermoigne, Dorset

Inside, butterflies are arranged in neat rows according to their colour – a drawer of blue, a drawer of yellow, a drawer of white and a drawer of orange, all unbelievably fragile and all still unbelievably vibrant. So, what do you see now?

Four little boys are standing in a churchyard, watching as their father and grandfather gently lower a tiny coffin into the ground. Inside is their new baby sister, Jane, who has lived for only a few hours. Over the last twelve years, three more little sisters have died within a few days of their birth. At home, in the rectory, is another brother, just over a year old.

The butterfly landed on Samuel’s shirt-cuff. Its wings were orange, with dark brown patches, and around the edges, were little blue spots, which exactly matched the colour of his coat. Its dark brown body was covered with down so soft he wanted to stroke it but was afraid it would fly away. He thought, at first, it had grown an extra leg on its head; but then the leg suddenly sprang back and disappeared, and he realised it had been busy cleaning its long tongue with its two front legs.

‘Look, William,’ he said.

‘It is the baby’s soul,’ William said, with the superiority of one who knows everything, being a whole two years older than Samuel.

Samuel said nothing. But, at the age of eight, he already knew that a butterfly came from a chrysalis, and before that a caterpillar and before that an egg. So how could this butterfly be the soul of his baby sister? At prayers, the day before, his father said the baby’s soul had already gone up to heaven, so how could it still be here? This was just another puzzle to add to everything else in the world that did not make sense.

The butterfly suddenly flew off in the direction of the grave. Samuel watched to see if it would land on the coffin, but it continued to spiral up out of sight.

Last Sunday, in church, he had listened to his father preaching his sermon from the pulpit in the church. ‘The body returns unto dust, and the spirit returns unto God who gave it,’ he had said. ‘In the next world, good men will achieve happiness and the wicked shall be punished.’ How did his father know this was true?

‘It is time to leave your sister, Jane, in God’s care now.’ His father turned away from the grave and led the way down the path, over the lane and up the drive to the rectory.

‘May we look at the butterflies, please, papa?’ Samuel wanted to see if he could find a butterfly like the one in the churchyard.

‘Not now, Samuel. Go upstairs with your brothers. If your mother is awake, she will want to see you. Quietly, now.’ Their father did not come upstairs with them but went straight into his study.

Before the funeral, Samuel had gone up to see his mother, but when he got to the door, he thought he could hear her crying, so he had tiptoed away again. Now she was sitting up in bed, looking very pale.

‘We have seen the baby’s soul go up to heaven, mama,’ William said. ‘God is looking after her now.’

Their mother smiled at him. ‘Did you see it too, Thomas?’

‘Yes, mama.’

‘And I did, mama,’ John said, who was only four, and tended to agree with anything his brothers said.

Once again, Samuel said nothing.

‘Come, boys, your mama is tired. She needs to sleep.’ Their nursemaid, Sarah, stood silhouetted in the doorway, little Robert in her arms, the sun from the window behind them shining on his fair curls. ‘Come up to the nursery with me, John. It is time for your sleep.’

Because of the burial, there were no lessons that morning. So, Samuel decided to go downstairs to the kitchen instead, and see what their cook, Mary, was preparing for their dinner. She was cutting some mutton into pieces and Martha, the kitchen maid, was chopping vegetables; both their faces were flushed from the heat from the range.

‘You arrived at the right time, master Samuel,’ Mary said. ‘Go and find Henry in the garden and ask him to pick some peas and bring them in to me, as soon as possible. And bring me some parsley and thyme, please.’

In the garden, he found Henry, the gardener, in the vegetable patch.

‘What are you doing, Henry?’

‘I be putting out they cauliflower plants, so you can have them for your dinner in the winter, master Samuel.’

‘Mary wants some peas for our dinner today. And I am to bring her some parsley and thyme to put in with the mutton.’

‘And how is your poor mama today, master Samuel?’

‘She is tired and sleeping now. We watched papa putting the baby’s coffin in the ground.’

‘’Tis a bad business. You boys would like a sister to play with, I should think.’

‘William said the butterfly we saw today was the baby’s soul. Do you think it was, Henry?’

‘I don’t know about that, master Samuel. You run along now, and take they herbs back to Mary in the kitchen.’

One of Samuel’s favourite places was the rectory kitchen. He could sit at the table with one of his books, while Mary and Martha were busy peeling, chopping and stirring. They left him to read in peace. His favourite book, that summer, was A Description of a Great Variety of Animals and Vegetables. He had already read the first part about animals with four legs. Part two was about birds, and he had reached page thirteen, which described the Little Owl and the Little Horn-Owl. And there was more to come – fishes, insects, then plants, fruits and flowers. Today, George, who had driven the boys’ grandfather from Shapwick that morning, was also sitting at the table. Whatever he was saying, made Martha blush and laugh.

‘Now then, George, you leave Martha alone,’ Mary said. But Samuel could see that she was also blushing – or perhaps it was just the heat from the range. Henry came into the kitchen with the peas, and Samuel continued reading to the sound of Martha shelling them – the pop, as she opened the pod, followed by the sound of the peas falling into a basin.

Upstairs, in the nursery, his brothers would be running about, making a noise; his little brother, Robert, would be strapped into his wooden baby walker and would be bumping into things; his brother, John, would be on the floor with his wooden puzzle. Perhaps, Sarah would be reading aloud from A Pretty Little Pocket Book: ‘Great A and B and C and tumbledown D, the Cat’s a Blind Buff and she cannot see,’ she would be saying. Last year, Samuel had loved this book, but now he felt he was far too grown-up. It was much more peaceful here.

Their grandfather stayed to have dinner with them. As well as the mutton and peas, there were turnips and carrots and little onions, and afterwards a rice pudding. Sarah took some dinner up to the nursery for John and Robert. William, Samuel and Thomas were allowed to sit at the table, as long as they were quiet while their father and grandfather talked. Sarah had told the boys that morning, that their mother would stay upstairs until she was stronger. Samuel missed her. She always made the dinner table a happy place to be, and their father was always much more cheerful when she was around.

After their dinner, Samuel went out into the garden again. It was very hot and he lay down on the grass under one of the apple trees. The sun was shining through the leaves and he could hear the buzzing of a bee, as it flew over his head towards the lavender bushes. He watched a beetle, glossy and black, as it made its way busily through the blades of grass. He could hear the swish of a scythe from the other side of the garden and smell the freshly cut grass.

‘Can we go and see the kittens again, Samuel?’ Thomas had arrived so quietly, that his voice made Samuel jump.

There were five kittens in the stable. When they were born, a week ago, their eyes were tightly shut and their fur had not yet grown properly. Now their fur had grown longer and they were starting to escape from their basket and run around the stable, so that Tabitha had to keep carrying them back in her mouth. Tabitha was white, with marmalade and black patches and Samuel wondered why only one of the kittens was the same colour. One of the others was black all over, two were marmalade with little white paws, and the last one was black and white.

Samuel and Thomas bent down to stroke the kittens and Samuel picked up the black and white one, which started to scramble up on to his shoulder. It had white whiskers and eyebrows, white paws and a white bib. Its fur was as soft as down, its claws as sharp as needles.

‘Will papa let us keep them all, do you think, Samuel?’ Thomas asked. ‘We could have one each. I should like the one that looks like Tabitha.’

‘We will have to ask him.’ But Samuel remembered that, last year, all of Tabitha’s kittens had disappeared after a few days. His father had told Henry to drown them all. But these kittens were still here, so perhaps they would be able to keep them this time.

They went to find Henry. He was still cutting the grass under the apple trees. He paused and leant on his scythe when he saw the boys.

‘Why are Tabitha’s kittens different colours, Henry?’

‘Well now, master Samuel, I should think ’tis because of Mrs Tucker’s big black tom.’

‘Why would that be, Henry?’

‘You’d be better asking your papa that sort of question.’ Henry turned away from the boys and started to cut down a patch of nettles.

When they went back into the house, the study door was open. Their father was sitting at his desk, spectacles in hand, peering at a book in front of him. He had taken his wig off and was wearing his embroidered cap, which Samuel knew meant he had finished working for the day.

‘Can we look at the butterflies now, please, papa? I want to find the orange butterfly we saw in the churchyard.’

His father glanced at his gold pocket watch; he beckoned the boys over to the small cabinet, which stood on the chest behind his desk and opened one of the drawers. And there it was. The label beneath the butterfly said it was a Small Tortoiseshell. Beside it was a Large Tortoiseshell, the one underneath that looked as if it had eyes on its wings, was a Peacock and beside it was a Red Admiral.

In the next drawer, were rows of blue butterflies. Most of them had white edges to their wings – the Common Blue, the silvery-blue Chalkhill Blue and the Adonis Blue – but next to each of them was a dull brown butterfly.

‘Why are they different colours, papa?’ Thomas asked.

‘The darker ones are female,’ his father said. ‘And they are all speckled brown under their wings. God made them all different colours, to make the world as beautiful as possible.’

‘And what about Tabitha’s kittens?’ Samuel said. ‘Henry said it was because of Mrs Tucker’s big black tom.’

‘You will understand when you are older, my son.’ His father turned away and opened another drawer lower down in the cabinet. ‘That is a thrush’s egg and that is a blackbird’s. And this one is a wren. You see it is much smaller than the others.’

Samuel had seen the collection many times, but never tired of looking at them. Some of the eggs were light blue, some brown, some white and many of them were speckled with different colours.

‘I should like to collect things, papa. I think I shall collect beetles. I could put them in the drawers with the butterflies and the birds’ eggs.’

‘An excellent idea, Samuel,’ his father said. Samuel thought it was not a good time to ask about keeping the kittens. He also wanted to ask why there was such a variety of creatures and plants in the world, and why God had allowed his baby sister to die. He decided that he would ask his mother, when she had recovered and was not so upset about losing another little girl. Her answers to his questions usually made more sense to Samuel than his father’s.

It was soon time to go up to the nursery for their supper before going to bed. Their little brother, Robert, was banging his rattle on the arms of his highchair and was starting to cry. Sarah gave him his teething stick to chew.

‘He is not a happy little boy. His gums are sore,’ she said. ‘His new teeth will come through soon and he will feel much better.’ She picked him up and took him through to the bedroom. Samuel could hear her singing quietly and he remembered how, when he was a much smaller boy, she had sung nursery rhymes to him when he could not sleep. The sound of her voice now, brought back the most comforting of feelings.

The older boys started to eat their bread and milk, which Mary had brought up from the kitchen. It was still light outside and would be until long after they had gone to bed. Samuel could hear a dog bark in the distance and a bird singing in the tree, outside the window.

‘Time for bed, John. And you, Thomas,’ Sarah said, coming back into the room.

Samuel went over to the window seat and looked out. He could see Henry wheeling a barrow over towards the compost heap, and wished he were still down in the garden. He opened his book and turned the pages to look at all the pictures of birds, fishes and insects, including butterflies. William came and sat next to him. Samuel peered over to see what he was reading. An Account of the Conversion, holy and exemplary Lives and joyful Deaths of Several Young Children – not the sort of book he, Samuel, would enjoy reading. But then William never wanted to do anything their father might frown upon. He had told Samuel that he wanted to preach in the church when he grew up, just like his father and grandfather. But Samuel already knew he would rather save babies from dying, instead of allowing them to have joyful deaths.

When she was well, his mother would always come into the nursery to say their prayers with them, before they went to sleep. She would ask God to bless everyone in the family and all the servants in the rectory, then all the little girls who had already gone up to heaven – two more called Jane and one called Elizabeth, after their grandmother. Today, Sarah said the prayers instead, but it was not the same. Samuel had a slight feeling of unease; of a lack of the warm security his mother gave him. He lay in his bed, in the room he shared with William and Thomas, thinking about all the questions which puzzled and worried him, until he fell asleep.

So, now you are looking at five little boys tucked up asleep in their beds, in a Dorset rectory. You are getting to know Samuel Baskett, and his four young brothers and want to know what will become of them. You pick out another object at random from the chest in the attic – this time a fossil...

Chapter 2

The Ammonite

Thursday, 15 May 1755 – Sherborne School, Dorset

The ammonite’s ribbed spiral shell is embedded in a piece of shale rock, which fits comfortably into the palm of your hand. In the eighteenth century, it was believed that fossils were anything dug out of the earth – including stones, metals, salts and other minerals – and which had been deposited in the earth by some unknown means. But you know that the ammonite is the fossil of a form of life which became extinct millions of years ago; it was a relative of the present-day octopus, squid and cuttlefish. What can you see now?

At first, you have difficulty picking out Samuel Baskett from the dozens of boys walking out of the chapel and into the school. But then, surely, that must be him? Older, of course. He must be fifteen by now, but something about the shape of his mouth and the dark chestnut colour of his hair hasn’t changed. Since you met Samuel and his brothers seven years ago, yet another little girl called Jane was born. She also died within a few days.

It is just after Whitsun; the summer holidays will begin tomorrow. Today, some of the boys at the top of the school, including Samuel’s brother, William, will be performing a play written in Latin – Andria by Terence. Although the play is a comedy, the performance is not to be taken lightly; being spoken entirely in Latin, it is not meant to be for entertainment, but a serious event, aimed at improving young minds. In the audience will be the headmaster, Joseph Hill, together with John Toogood, one of the governors of the school, and some visiting families of the boys, come to fetch the boarders home.

Samuel put his hand into his pocket and fingered the outline of the spiral shell embedded in the fossil’s surface. He had picked it up earlier in the year, while walking on the beach with his brother William and their friends, Lewis and John Cockram, who lived in Swanage. Since then, it had become a sort of talisman for Samuel, representing the secret life he lived when he was alone. He was still far more interested in learning about the stars above him and the creatures and plants all around him, than what his father thought important and what he was taught at school.

He was relieved that after breakfast they would be having their last lessons before coming back to school after the Whitsun holiday. His father had agreed that William and he could stay with the Cockram family, at Newton Manor, in Swanage for a few days, returning to Owermoigne in time to go to the Sunday services. Samuel enjoyed the liveliness and bustle at Newton, in contrast to the more solemn atmosphere at home. The library there was Samuel’s idea of heaven.

He could not wait to look through Mr Cockram’s microscope, at the slides of insects and plants, and to see again the stars in the night sky through his telescope. And above all, he was looking forward to his discussions with Lewis, who was the only person, Samuel felt, he could tell about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. Lewis, who was two years older than Samuel, knew that he would inherit Newton Manor from his father and would have to devote his life to running the estate. But Samuel knew he wanted to save lives.

Samuel found his mind wandering during the morning, even having to be nudged by John Cockram, Lewis’s brother, to answer Sum, when his name was called by the Master. The older boys were occupied in the last debate of the half, so there was an occasional uproar as someone failed to respond to a question. John Cockram was called on to recite a speech by Tacitus. Samuel hoped he would not be called next, as he found the long passages in Latin not only difficult to remember, but also extremely boring.

At least if the lesson had been arithmetic, he would have found it more engaging, although the lessons were always very basic and did nothing to stretch his mind. The younger boys, including his brother, Thomas, were occupied in their daily Latin linguistic practice. With the combined noise of the three classes as background to his thoughts, Samuel gazed out of the window and began to think about his visit to Newton Manor and to make a mental list of all the topics he wanted to talk about.

He got the fossil out of his pocket, and wondered once again how the shape of what looked rather like one of the snails in the garden, had become embedded into the stone. Lewis might have a theory. When he was last at Newton Manor, Mr Cockram had told him that he knew of a book called Systema Naturae by someone called Linnaeus, who was from Sweden. He wondered whether Mr Cockram had a copy of the book yet. It was in Latin, but that would not present too much difficulty. Samuel found it immensely satisfying to be told that Linnaeus had arranged all plants and animals in order, according to their basic characteristics.